LITERATURE REVIEW
2.3 Concepts, Causes and Policies in the Study of Psycho-behavioral Science
2.3.5 Variables from Conceptual Framework of Planned Behavior Theory Theory
When considering in the figure 2.12 and the study of Ajzen (2002); Kielty (2010); Thitipat Pichayathadapong (2005), it can know lots of important variables in the theory of planned behavior as follows;
1) Behavioral beliefs. This behavioral beliefs are associated with the behaviors of each person who is anticipated the results of those behavioral implementations. Additionally, the behavioral beliefs are considered as an individual belief that is affected from individual feelings. Those people believe that if they implement that behavior, they will gain a positive outcome of implementation and they will trend to have a good attitude toward the behavior as well. On the other hands, those people believe that if they implement that behavior, they will gain a negative outcome of implementation and they will trend to have a bad attitude toward the behavior as well. For instance, if people believe that if they operate the integrated working between their own sector and other sectors that have expertise and particular skills in the implementation based on plans and tourism development policies, the outcomes of policy implementation based on their assignments will reach the achievement as objectives that the organization is anticipated and they will have a good attitude toward the integrated working between sectors or organizations in the policy implementation. So, it can be concluded that this behavioral belief is considered as an indicator of the trend or attitude toward the behavior.
2) Attitude toward the behavior. The attitude toward the behavior is a level of personal opinion and feelings in positive and negative ways to those implementations. The more people have a positive or negative attitude, the more the behavioral intentions trend to be in the same direction as the attitude.
3) Normative beliefs. The normative belief is a personal perception that norms and roles which society pays attention or are an essential model will desire or expect people to implement those performances. In addition, norms or essential models have an influence on behavioral actions such as family members, instructors, leaders, colleagues and other respected people. Then, norms or essential models in each matter will depend on population group or sample group and educational behavior. Also, the normative belief is considered as an indicator of subjective norm
into the behavioral actions. For instance, people believe that their respected leaders will operate the integrated working between their own sector and other sectors that have expertise and particular skills in the implementation based on plans and tourism development policies. To maximize the efficient policy implementation, those people will follow their leader in the integrated working between sectors in the policy implementation. In conclusion, this normative belief is considered as an indicator of the trend or direction of subjective norm.
4) Subjective norm. The subjective norm is an one person’s perception that other people or surrounding societies are important, influenced and attractive for them to implement or not implement those behaviors. Additionally, the influence on the implementation is more or less depend on the importance of norm or model such as instructors that are important or have influence on people to conduct the behavior of sharing knowledge rather than the colleagues. The occurrence of this variable derived from the belief. This would mean that if people perceive their important person, model or norm of those behavioral actions or want other people to conduct or express those behaviors, the other people will trend to implement as well. According to the theory of planned behavior, the subjective norm will affect on the behavioral intentions and lead to the behavioral actions as well.
5) Ability control belief. The belief about behavior control related with the personal perception that several factors inside and outside individuals are sufficient or not in order to support or interrupt those behavioral actions. For example, people believe that if they operate the integrated working between their own sector and other sectors that have expertise and particular skills in the implementation based on plans and tourism development policies, they will have various factors to facilitate them in the policy implementation efficiently and they will express those behaviors to drive the integrated working between sectors in the policy implementation. On the other hands, people believe that if the organization support or does not support several factors to facilitate them in the policy implementation efficiently, they will not express those behaviors. From the examples earlier, it demonstrated that the organization has facilitated factors in the policy implementation and is considered as a supporting. Otherwise, the shortage of facilitated factors in the policy implementation is considered as a barrier.
6) Perceived behavioral control. The perceive behavioral control is a personal perception that is difficult or easy. Additionally, a personal perception has a sufficient ability or not to implement or control the behavioral actions. Then, if people decide to implement or not implement the behavior, they will believe that they have capabilities to conduct, have facilitated factors or can control those behavioral actions as well as they will reach the achievement as defined objectives or policies. Also, the concept of perceived behavioral control is consistent with the concept of perceived self-efficacy by Albert Bandura (Bandura, 1986a, 1986b). However, there are some differences that perceived self-efficacy emphasized on internal factors of individuals, but perceived behavioral control emphasized on internal factors (data, skills and abilities) and external factors (opportunities, money, dependence on other people and resources). Then, people decide to implement those behaviors when they believe that they have capabilities, skills and facilitated factors to control those behavioral actions under those specific conditions and situations. Also, when the implementation is done, they will have an opportunity to reach high achievements. Sometimes, the conditions and situations might be ambiguous, unclear, strange and unpredictable. As a consequence, the implementor will be stressful (Bandura, 1986a, 1986b; Thitipat Pichayathadapong, 2005). However, the perceived behavioral control does not depend on skills that people contain at that time, but it depends on individual decision that what people can do by using their own skills or facilitated factors. Therefore, people make or do not make a decision to select the activity or various behavioral actions and the results are partly derived from perceived behavioral control. Also, people trend to make a decision to implement the behaviors in the circumstances that they believe they can control their behaviors sufficiently and have an opportunity to succeed (Ajzen, 2002).
7) Behavioral intentions. This behavioral intention demonstrates the perception of people in their availability to express or conduct the behavior. In addition, the intention in expressing or implementing these behaviors is considered as an essential indicator to affect individuals’ behavioral actions. Therefore, this behavioral intention have an influence from 3 main variables including attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Additionally, these three variables are considered as a predictor variable to foresee more or less
behavioral intention depended on the importance and weight of predictor as well as population groups that are studying and interests of sample group. However, the measurement of intention for predicting the behavioral actions of those people cannot be done 100 percent because the intentions cannot be changed all the times. In addition, there are many variables can affect on the intentions such as the intentions under conditions, the durations in the measurement of intention and behavior and the intentions of group. For the other variables that have an effect on the relationships between intention and behavior, it includes direct experience, observations from other people who used to implement these behaviors, skills in behavioral actions, the occurrence of unexpected circumstances and so on (Francis et al., 2004).
8) Actual behavioral control. The actual behavioral control is the limitations of people in skills, capability, specific aptitude, resource and other availabilities that are required before doing the behavioral actions and are necessary to those behavioral actions. However, the achievement of behavioral actions not only depends on the intentions, but it also depends on level of sufficient behavioral control.
In conclusion, people need to perceive their own capabilities of behavioral action precisely. According to the reasons of actual behavioral control, it is about understanding in both of internal factors (e.g. skills, knowledge, capabilities intelligences and the strengths of body) and external factors (e.g. money, labors, machines, equipment, legal limitations, sponsorship and others). These factors are necessary to express desirable behaviors. And when comparing with perceived behavioral control that is a measurement, idea and beliefs in the difficulty assessment of those occurred performances, it is harder to measure as well as the difficulty in defining variables. Most studies measure the perceived behavioral control instead of actual behavioral control. However, if the perceived behavioral control can be measured precisely, it will be able to reflect on the actual behavioral control very well and be a good predictor of behavior (Ajzen, 2002; Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005).
9) Behavior. The behavior is considered as an individual performance or expression that can be observed from the circumstances and defined objectives.
Furthermore, the observation of individual behavior can be done by gathering the results of implementation through conditions, situations and times in behavioral actions many times. Also, the variety of duration that is suitable can be a
representative in the behavioral measurement. According to the concept of planned behavior theory, the behavior will derive from the function that is in the same direction with the behavioral intention and perceived behavioral control. Based on this concept, the perceived behavioral control will be anticipated to be a medium that has an effect on behavioral intention. Additionally, this concept was referred from
“Moderators of Perceived Behavioral Control’s Productiveness in the Theory of Planned Behavior” by Notani in 1998 ( Thitipat Pichayathadapong, 2 0 0 5 ) . For example of this concept, the satisfaction of behavioral intention has originated when people perceive that they have an ability to control those behaviors. In the implementation, the intention and perceiving control ability are often found out when there are intense influences and sufficient steady to the implementation. Nevertheless, there are not much differences in general situations such as having a relationship between people and so on.
According to the variables based on the theory of planned behavior, it can be clearly seen that there are detailed explanations since cause until the occurrence of behavior by considering the internal factors of individuals, personal factors and surrounding individuals. Then, this theory covered the most prediction of occurred behavior the existing theories at this moment (Ajzen, 1991, 2002; Kielty, 2010; Theeraporn Uwanno, 2004; Thitipat Pichayathadapong, 2005). Along with the results of analyzing educational gap of Thailand in the policy implementation need the studies that more emphasized on anthropological or psychological framework. For the next part, it must be the analysis of related researches in the issue of variable and relation framework from synthesizing studies and developing a conceptual framework of policy implementation based on the theory of planned behavior. As a consequence, the studies can be able to explain and develop the integrated working between organization that can implement the policies to be as close to the real condition as possible.
2.3.6 Analysis of Related Researches: Variables and Relationship